Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Another reason to work from home

I lost my watch. Technically, I did not lose it though. Actually, I put it somewhere and the cat knocked it around and now I can't find it. Luckily, it beeps on the hour so once and hour I have a chance at locating it. I go to a different room and just sit quietly for 5 minutes in hopes of hearing that little 'beep, beep.' So far- no luck. The fear of its batteries going out or of the tiny speaker being muffled against something is starting to set in. Seriously, I need my watch. Practicing a 12 minutes talk is difficult with no timer. Luckily, I have about 36 more 'beep,beeps' to find it before I head south.

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Marketing Sales Promotion by Chet Holmes

The carpet cleaner client of mine sent me recordings of some of their salespeople talking tocustomers. Im listening to this salesperson talk to a 78-year-old woman who uses a walker to get around. Shes calling to have her rug cleaned. They set up theappointment for the rug to be picked up and taken back to their plant for a thorough cleaning. Wall-to-wall has to be cleaned in the home. For rugs, they can takethem out of the home and really get them cleaned in their plant, where they have a giantwashing-machine-like structure to completely submerge, clean and expertly dry your rug. So Im listening to the conversation with the elderly woman and it goes like this:

Woman: Well what about the pad under the rug? Its kind of dirty, too.

Since Im the consultant and I know how expensive it is to get new clients, I think, They should sellpads. Heck, theyve got the rug right there in the plant. They can put the rug on the padding, cut itout, roll it up and send it right back with the rug. Its a great up-sell.

So I get the owner on the phone: I have a great idea for you. You should sell pads. He says, We do. I tell him, No you dont, actually and I play him the recording. The owner brings the salesperson in and asks her why she didnt offer to sell this old woman a pad. The salesperson says, I didnt want to seem too pushy.

This carpet cleaning company actually had six excellent up-sell options. The problem was getting the salespeople to offer them. In addition to carpets, they can clean your couch or your bed. The sametechnology of using really hot steam to clean your carpet applies to the furniture you sit on (or your dog sits on) all day. Studies show that the average living room has five million dust mites in it. Our bodies are equipped to deal with those mites, but its their feces and the bacteria that feed on it that can cause bacterial infection. (As you can see here, and will learn in depth in the next chapter, market data can be very motivational.) Steaming that bed or couch kills germs.

We gathered all of the salespeople in a workshop and asked them, What would you say is the best method for offering every client every service every time?One of the salespeople suggested we put the six services they offer right on the order form. As theyre talking to the client, they would be able to check off all six things on the order form to show they offered them. This was a great suggestion so we decided to test it and implement it as a procedure forthe company. We followed ten simple steps and, after several months of pigheaded discipline and hard work,we had it so that every salesperson offered every service to every customer every time.

Chet Holmes has worked with over 60 of the Fortune 500 companies as Americas top marketing executive,trainer, and strategic consultant. Chet is the author of the best selling book, The Ultimate Sales Machine (#1 business book on Amazon, #1 Sales and Marketingbook on Amazon, and also on NY Times best seller list). Chet has identified and developed the 12 core competencies that are proven to provide the main structure of truly great companies and he hasdeveloped more than fifty proprietary methods toimplement them. To learn more about how to double the sales of your company, go to www.howtodoublesales.com